"Coach, I want to apologize for losing my head in there," Jackson said. "It's just that losing is so hard."

About 30 minutes before, teammate Nick Maddox and team chaplain Clint Purvis escorted Jackson out a side door after an angry outburst in front of teammates over the team's 34-24 loss to Notre Dame.

"We're just not used to losing," said Jackson, who was just as upset after the Seminoles' 26-20 overtime loss at Louisville. "It was really hard today because we thought we had a good chance. It went from a game to a blowout in a couple of minutes thanks to three turnovers."

Jackson wasn't alone in his emotional display. Assistant coaches Odell Haggins and Jody Allen had to quiet defensive tackle Darnell Dockett and nose tackle Travis Johnson, and wide receiver Talman Gardner, among others, who left the locker room without showering.

There was talk of a seniors' meeting today as the team approaches the rest of its schedule saddled with a 5-3 record.

"Why are we losing?" Dockett said. "That's what needs to be addressed. My little 3-year-old niece can see that we need to make some changes, and we need to make them in a hurry before this gets really ugly. Our focus shouldn't be on the BCS. It had better be on Wake Forest.

"I'm not dogging the program, but Florida State isn't supposed to lose like this. It reflects on the players as much as anybody, but we have to get it straightened out and headed in a different direction quickly. We can't keep giving away games that we should win."

No player would talk about what should be done, but there has been finger-pointing at coaches, the quarterback and between the offense and defense.

"You have a group of seniors who haven't had to lose," Maddox said. "They've been fortunate to be at Florida State when there was never more than a loss or two in a season. It's not that way right now, and it's hard to handle. It frustrating."

Maddox understood Jackson's outburst when he was screamed at no one in particular, "You know what it is! You know what it is! Everybody knows what it is!" Yet Jackson wouldn't explain his comment.

"The biggest problem we have is everybody finds the quickest relief in blaming anybody but themselves," Maddox said. "It's easy for the offense to blame the defense. It's easy for the players to blame the coaches. It's easy to blame the quarterback.

"If we're going anywhere as a team, we had better face it. Everybody shares in the blame for a loss just like everybody gets credit for a win. We're not getting it done as a team, and we're not going to fix it by yelling and screaming at each other. We can only get it resolved together."

There wasn't even a consensus about what happened in the loss to the Irish. Most blamed the turnovers. Some blamed the offense's failure to score. Others said it was the defense's inability to keep Notre Dame out of the end zone despite the poor field position and turnovers. Some gave credit to the Irish.

"No one seems to have one solution to fix it all," quarterback Chris Rix said. "When we stick together like we did at Miami, we can stay with anybody. We have to make that happen, but I don't know how to do it. If anybody in here did, it would have happened by now. We're still looking for the answer."